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ARCH annual report

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ARCH will be making arrangements to consult ARCH member councils
on their views to help inform our response.

The ARCH Executive Board will be considering its initial
response to the Green Paper at the Board meeting on 10 September
and the ARCH Tenant Group is making arrangements to hold a special
meeting of the Group in October, in order to feed their views into
the response.

There will also be an opportunity for tenants to learn more
about the Green Paper directly from senior officials at the Housing
Ministry, when they speak at the ARCH Tenant Conference on 18
September.

Following publication of the Green Paper, ARCH Chief Executive,
John Bibby gave the following initial response:

"ARCHwelcomes the general thrust of the Social Housing Green
Paper, but we feel the government could and should have gone
further in committing resources to substantially increase the
supply of social rented housing by recognising the significant role
that the provision of new council housing could play in increasing
supply.

A strengthening of the social housing regulator's role is what
most tenants would expect to see, following the Grenfell tragedy
and it is right and proper that landlords should account to their
tenants for their performance, but we have some concerns that
"league tables" may oversimplify matters and not give the full
picture and look forward to further dialogue with the Housing
Ministry on the performance measures proposed.

We very much welcome the decision to abandon the proposed High
Value Asset Levy and the forced sale of higher value social housing
and think it is right that the introduction of fixed-term tenancies
should continue to be a matter for local discretion - these are
matters we have been campaigning on for some time.

Longer term partnerships and debt guarantees for housing
associations are mooted in the Green Paper, but we are disappointed
that the government has missed the opportunity to underpin the
promise of "a new generation of council housing" by proposing a
general raising of housing revenue account debt caps and
recommitting to the principles of the HRA self-financing
settlement.

We welcome the consultation on greater flexibilities in the use
of RTB receipts, which was first announced on 29 March this year,
but even with maximum flexibilities it must be recognised that with
the huge RTB discounts on offer, most councils will be hard pressed
to do any more than deliver one for one replacement of council
housing sold under the Right to Buy.

We are also surprised and concerned that council housing appears
to have been singled out for a potential new stock transfer
programme to new "community led" housing associations. If community
ownership and management is to form part of the answer then the
opportunity should be open to tenants of all social landlords,
including private registered providers.

Nevertheless the Social Housing Green Paper provides an
opportunity for ARCH to make the case for council housing and we
look forward to contributing to the debate about the future of
social housing and to continuing the dialogue we have established
with the Housing Ministry and responding to the Green Paper in due
course."

We will be writing to the lead officer and elected
member in each ARCH member council in September to seek views and
comments, to inform a formal response to the Green Paper and would
encourage all ARCH member councils to respond.